Why does city allow neighborhood storage?

By Vincent J. Palancia

Published: Friday, March 22, 2013 at 07:51 PM.

To the editor:

A review of the latest articles in The Daily News concerning cleaning up our county and city — county funds to demolish dilapidated homes in the county and city tax dollars to demolish old storage buildings along the riverfront in the downtown area; both good ideas by the way — has this writer a bit confused.

Why, then, would the Jacksonville city manager approve use of residential homes in an established neighborhood to be designated by the fire marshal as so-called Approved Storage Sites?

For the past few years, residents of a downtown neighborhood have been officially complaining to the city about certain properties — unoccupied residential homes being used as storage. The city manager was invited to a Community Watch meeting in September 2012 to discuss this problem.

At that time, he said he would “see” about putting more “teeth” into city ordinances concerning such use of properties.

It came as a surprise then, when in January 2013, those properties were designated as approved storage sites by the city manager upon approval from the city fire marshal.

When downtown revitalization started 16 years ago, a major problem was the blight caused by the number of old buildings used as storage, including three houses on Mill Avenue — unoccupied homes filled with “treasures.” It wasn’t until two of those dilapidated homes were cleaned out and demolished that homesteaders began to move into the area, renovate existing historic homes, construct new homes, start businesses and, I might add, expand the tax base.

A review of the latest articles in The Daily News concerning cleaning up our county and city — county funds to demolish dilapidated homes in the county and city tax dollars to demolish old storage buildings along the riverfront in the downtown area; both good ideas by the way — has this writer a bit confused.

Why, then, would the Jacksonville city manager approve use of residential homes in an established neighborhood to be designated by the fire marshal as so-called Approved Storage Sites?

For the past few years, residents of a downtown neighborhood have been officially complaining to the city about certain properties — unoccupied residential homes being used as storage. The city manager was invited to a Community Watch meeting in September 2012 to discuss this problem.

At that time, he said he would “see” about putting more “teeth” into city ordinances concerning such use of properties.

It came as a surprise then, when in January 2013, those properties were designated as approved storage sites by the city manager upon approval from the city fire marshal.

When downtown revitalization started 16 years ago, a major problem was the blight caused by the number of old buildings used as storage, including three houses on Mill Avenue — unoccupied homes filled with “treasures.” It wasn’t until two of those dilapidated homes were cleaned out and demolished that homesteaders began to move into the area, renovate existing historic homes, construct new homes, start businesses and, I might add, expand the tax base.

As a former Community Watch block captain, I wonder what the thoughts of the city police department are concerning property crimes with having these potential problem structures in a residential neighborhood?

The designation of these so-called storage homes starts the slippery slope of allowing the blight that happened to the downtown area years ago to start again, not to mention the devaluation of the properties in the area.

Why is the city spending tax dollars to demolish storage buildings on the outskirts of residential neighborhoods only to allow storage homes within a neighborhood?